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By Kola Popson
The self-acclaimed biggest political party in the whole of Africa, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has just been drastically brought down to a minimal level by the Nigerian electorates and the opposition party, All Progressive Congress (APC) in the just concluded 2015 general elections across the country. Prior to this elections, and since its inception in 1999, PDP had continued to dominate political and elective offices both at the federal and state level. As a dominating party, PDP has been the one controlling the presidency, the two chambers of the National Assembly and majority (more than two-third) of the states of the federation. Unfortunately, today the reverse is about to be the case as the countdown to the handover date, May 29 2015, continues. Whether anybody likes it or not, the truth is that PDP has fallen, and there are some personalities that aided its fall. These personalities and their roles in bringing down PDP actually prompted this writing. Six of these personalities, who have aided the fall of a party that has ruled Nigeria for almost 16 years, shall be looked into.
The first person that has contributed to the massive defeat of PDP is the former President Olusegun Obasanjo. In reality, the process leading to the eventual collapse of PDP had started long time ago in 2007, when the third-term ambition of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo was jettisoned by Nigerians, courtesy of the National Assembly members. To Chief Obasanjo, that would be the beginning of the fall of PDP, though this was covert. When his third term aspiration was aborted, the loyalty that Chief Obasanjo had for PDP, the party that had brought him to power, reduced to some extent, but he would not make it so obvious to the public.
Consequently, the former President Obasanjo mounted his vengeance on the gladiators of the abortion of his third term bid, especially his Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, by making sure that he and others did not get the party ticket to contest for the president. In the same vein, Chief Obasanjo believed that he would continue to remain relevant in the party if he chose his successor himself. Therefore, Atiku Abubakar and others aspirants were sidelined by the magical manipulations of Chief Obasanjo, while the late Umar Musa Yar’adua was singlehandedly chosen and imposed on the party by the former president. After the death of President Yar’adua as a result of a prolonged heart disease, which was predated by series of controversial activities, his vice, Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as the substantial president to finish the tenure of Ya’adua. There would be another presidential election in 2011. Chief Obasanjo had considered Dr. Goodluck Jonathan an obedient political son that would dance to his tune; hence Obasanjo ensured that Dr. Jonathan emerged the presidential flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party, despite the fact that Dr. Jonathan was not as strong and powerful as Atiku Abubakar, who was also aspiring for same position under PDP.
Regrettably, Chief Obasanjo later discovered, after Dr. Jonathan had been elected the president, that the latter was not as obedient as the former had thought. That was another factor that has further abridged the loyalty of Obasanjo for PDP. When it finally dawned on Chief Obasanjo that President Jonathan would not listen to him on virtually all issues and suggestions raised, then former President Obasanjo started criticizing Jonathan/PDP led government openly on virtually everything. Then PDP was going down gradually, but not everybody realized this. Chief Obasanjo eventually crowned his efforts in bringing down PDP, when he gave his PDP membership card to his ward chairman to destroy. As the ward chairman destroyed the card, other members of the party at the gathering began to sing in Yoruba language, “Bi awada bi ere, PDP n wole lo.” This simply means that “gradually PDP is going into a state of oblivion.”
It is important to note that the withdrawal of Obasanjo from the PDP had resulted to its downfall. Obasanjo had always been the brain behind the manipulations of elections results, particularly from the Northern zones, in favour of PDP. Today Obasanjo is surely happy to witness the fall of a political party that was once regarded even by himself as the biggest political party in Africa.
Another person that has aided the fall of PDP is the incumbent president himself, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. Truthfully, President Jonathan’s contribution to the defeat and fall of PDP will remain one to be reckoned with in the political history of Nigeria. President Jonathan placed his own interest over that of his political party, and this has aided the loss of the party. This started with his widely spread alleged claim that he would only want to be a one-term president. However, he later debunked this claim, challenging anybody to bring forth any written or recorded evidence for it, adding that the claim was a fallacy. So, he was going to contest for the 2015 presidential election no matter what any region, group or party rightly or wrongly attributed to him. President Jonathan was determined to contest and not even Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (who had chosen him over Atiku Abubakar and others) could stop him.
Well, while President Jonathan had the right to contest for the second term as stipulated and interpreted by the court, he and other bigwigs in the party played a wrong card when they decided to make President Jonathan the sole presidential candidate of the party. To add salt to the injury, the leadership of the party openly announced that there was only one presidential form available, and that it was strictly for the incumbent president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. This development did not go well with some members of the party as they would have preferred a situation where every aspiring member would be given the right to participate in a fair primary election. But, President Jonathan and his loyalists in the party would not allow this happen.
Indeed, the selfish interest of President Goodluck Jonathan resulted to five of the PDP governors, Rotimi Amaechi from Rivers State, Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Alhaji Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Alhaji Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto) and Alhaji Ahmed Abdulfatah (Kwara) formally defect to All Progressive Congress (APC). Prior to their defection, they had formed what they called a new PDP with the hope that their grievances and complaints would be addressed by the leadership of the party so that they could remain in PDP. Unfortunately for PDP, President Jonathan and the leadership of the party took the five governors for granted and allowed them to make a formal defection to APC. Even after their defection, the leaders of PDP were indirectly making a mockery of the defected governors, noting that they would soon come back to PDP, while no reasonable move was made to bring them back. President Jonathan and his supporters in the party had ignorantly believed that the defection of these governors would not have any effect on the reelection bid of GEJ.
In the same vein, the nonchalant attitude of President Jonathan to corruption and security is another contributing factor to the fall of the party.
Another personality that has aided the massive defeat of PDP is the former Lagos State governor and National leader of APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Though many may not like the political ideology of this man, he has always been a very vibrant opposition figure to the federal government since 1999 when he was elected Lagos State Governor under the platform of Alliance for Democracy (AD). Tinubu has always been interested in the change of power at the federal.
Indeed, Tinubu had made many attempts on his own part to bring about change of power at the federal level, but failed woefully. He tried in 2011, when his party, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) presented Nuhu Ribadu as its presidential candidate. His party presidential candidate was extremely defeated as he could not even come second to President Goodluck Jonathan.
However, in his desire and eagerness to make PDP descend from a ruling party to an opposition one, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu led a mission for the coming together of three political parties, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to become one political party, All Progressive Congress (APC) to take on the People’s Democratic Party. Today, that singular movement has yielded a positive and desirable result not only for Tinubu, but others who have been clamouring for a change of power at the federal level. So there is no way anybody will write about the fall of PDP that Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu will not be mentioned.
Governor Rotimi Amaeachi of Rivers State is another personality that has contributed to the fall of PDP. Yes many may argue that Gov. Amaechi has not really made any impact on the eventual outcome of the elections on the premise that he could not even deliver his state to APC. Well, they might be correct in their own rights. However, it is pertinent to note here that Gov. Amaechi was actually the one who had engineered the defection of the five PDP governors to APC. It would be recalled that he was the Chairman of the Governors’ forum. He was the brain behind the defection. In fact, the dispute between the defected governors and PDP started with Amaechi as the subject matter.
A critical look at the number of votes cast for the president-elect, Gen Muhammad Buhari in such states like Kano, Adamawa, Sokoto and Kwara, will make one believe that truly the defection of these four governors of these listed states from PDP to APC had largely impacted the outcome of the elections. The Niger State governor, Aliyu Babangida corroborated this when he noted that the rise of G7 group of governors was to correct the wrongs in the PDP, adding that the defection of his former colleagues in the party strengthened APC and brightened the chances of president-elect, Muhammadu Buhari and other elected persons.
The President-elect, General Muhammad Buhari himself is another important personality that has aided the defeat of PDP. General Muhammad Buhari has been adjudged by many as a man of integrity who does not like corruption. Similarly, many see his disciplinarian actions as outstanding. Aside this, he is so popular and loved by many northerners. This was evident in the 2011 presidential election when he won 12 out of 18 states in the North. Therefore, many believed that APC was able to defeat PDP led government at the polls due to the integrity and popularity of its presidential candidate.
On a similar note, many argue that APC would have lost woefully if it had elected or chosen the former vice president Atiku Abubakar or any other candidate as its presidential flag-bearer.
The last but not the least of the people that have contributed immensely to the defeat of PDP at the 2015 general elections is Prof. Attairu Jega. Many believe that the PDP led government would have manipulated the results of the elections in its favour if Prof. Jega had decided to compromise.
In an attempt to ensure a free and fair election, Prof. Jega introduced the use of card readers to avoid manipulation and rigging of the results. Many attempts were made by some PDP members to abolish the use of card readers probably to pave ways for manipulation, but Prof. Jega maintained his stand that the card readers must be used. Though there were reports of malfunctioning of the card readers in some parts of the country, while some strongly believe that there were irregularities in the conduct of the elections, many still believe Prof. Jega has performed excellently.
Similarly, the maturity Prof. Jega has exhibited in the processes of the conduct of the election, especially when the former Niger Delta Minister, Peter Godsday Orubebe started acting that globally criticized drama during the collation and collection of results at Federal Capital Territory (FCT), has helped in ensuring that PDP is taken down. If Prof. Jega had not handled the situation well and with maturity, the process would have been disrupted.
Before this ugly drama was acted by Elder Orubebe, Prof. Jega had known that General Muhammad Buhari would win, and he didn’t want anything to jeopardize the final victory of the President-elect. This explained why Prof. Jega had decisively overruled an objection raised by an agent of one of the political parties that the results of Rivers State Presidential election should not be accepted for presentation on the premise that there were irregularities in the conduct of the election in the state. The professor had overruled the objection because he knew even with the acceptance of the Rivers State results, which highly favoured President Jonathan, General Muhammad Buhari would still emerge the winner.
It was quite ironical for Prof. Jega to have claimed that he had no slight idea of the presidential election results from all states of the federation prior to their formal presentation at the National Collation Center in Abuja. It was ironical because we have been made to know that soft copies of all the results from the 36 states including FCT had been forwarded earlier, via internet, to the collation center before their formal presentation by State Electoral Residents.
Be that as it may, majority of Nigerians and international actors have adjudged Prof. Jega fair enough in the conduct of the 2015 general elections. Without doubt, the name of Prof. Attahiru Jega will be boldly written in the political history of Nigeria, with reference to the victory of General Muhammad Buhari and the mighty fall of a giant political party, Peoples Democratic Party.
